IVIV (1) "She came along the alley and up the back steps ..."

[alice wellintown]

Well, there it is. That's Romance for ya. If we want to get all
imperialistic about it, start taking moral positions and stiff upper
lip rigidities seriously, perhaps the American Romance, a novel of
contradictions and Exploration, is not what we should be discussing.

I never thought of the P-list as imperialistic. It's exploration.

Chase is wonderful.

To insist that Ishmael or Zoyd is innocent is just absurd. What's the
fun in that. Nothing profound in that. Nothing Black. Nothing Dark.
Like reading Melville and not getting his humor.

Why do that?

Recall that scene in GR when Enzian tosses Marvy the racist off the ?

Slothrop isn't a "racist" like the southern cracker who gets hung by his balls.

But he's not innocent. He's learning, Exploring. That's the fun in it.


 A scene that reads like a scene in Moby-Dick.

"Capting! Capting!" yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer;
"Capting, Capting, here's the devil."

"Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking
up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know
you might have killed that chap?"

"What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.

"He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there," pointing
to the still shivering greenhorn.

"Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly
expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no
kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!"

"Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you
try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye."

But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to
mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted
the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to
side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor
fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all
hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay
it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost
in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of
snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable
of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing
the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the
midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and
crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured
one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso,
caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next
jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner
was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the
stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with
a long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen
swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him,
and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam.
I looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved.
The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the
water, Queequeg now took an instant's glance around him, and seeming
to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few
minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with
the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The
poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the
captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a
barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.

Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he
at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He
only asked for water - fresh water - something to wipe the brine off;
that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning
against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be
saying to himself - "It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all
meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians."



see Chapter xiii - WHEELBARROW
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby_013.html